Pokémon Sword and Shield: Our Initial Thoughts

We’re sure you’ve seen by now, but this morning’s Pokémon Direct revealed the first titles of the upcoming eighth generation of the video game empire: Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. If you haven’t yet seen the announcement video, you can watch it below:

The games are set in the Galar region, which is based on the United Kingdom. Fuzzable was launched in the UK, so naturally, we are ecstatic about this setting, which is also vastly different from any other region in the Pokémon universe.

We also noticed that this new region boasts similarities to the Kalos region, notably in its route signs. There’s also the Fletchling motif at the beginning of the trailer. Could Galar be the region with which Kalos warred? They are the only two known regions to be based on European locations, after all, with Kalos drawing inspiration from Paris, France. Even if we don’t revisit Kalos, expanding that lore would be marvelous.

A map of the Galar region, as announced by The Pokémon Company

We are excited to seemingly have a cooler region after lastly visiting the tropical Alola region. We hope this means there will be plenty of new Ice-type Pokémon to discover, as Alola had an unsurprising lack of them because of its climate.

Before moving on from the region, we would like to point out how much we love the look of the steampunk area in the announcement video. Could Meltan and Melmetal play a role in these games somehow? The area resembles the home of Magearna in the Pokémon movie Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel, but Meltan would make much more sense given its intergenerational debut into the franchise.

Photo courtesy of Nintendo Wire

Now that we’ve discussed the region, we have to discuss the Starter Pokémon. In Galar, we will be able to choose from the Grass-type Grookey, the Fire-type Scorbunny, and the Water-type Sobble. If we’re being honest, we think all three of these critters are absolutely adorable, and we have no idea who we are going to choose upon the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield. We may need to wait to see their evolutions before choosing…

When discussing the Starter Pokémon, though, we must naturally discuss if we think they will obtain secondary types upon evolution as all of the Starters did from the last two generations, and if so, what types they will get.

For Grookey, we can see it potentially gaining a Fairy-typing, becoming mystical upon evolution. For Scorbunny, we would love to see it gain the Electric-type and becoming very swift upon evolution. Finally, for Sobble, we could potentially see it gaining a Poison-typing or something along those lines. We have no idea what they’ll become, but it’s always fun to speculate!

Finally, we need to discuss the logos of Pokémon Sword and Shield. We were shown a lot in the announcement trailer, but we were not shown the main legendary Pokémon for the games. We do, however, see wolf-like figures in the logos of the games. We can assume that these represent the legendary creatures as past games’ logos have.

What would you like to see these creatures look like, and what typings would you like these legendaries to have? Our only idea at the moment is that Sword’s legendary will be more offensive in its stats, while Shield’s will be more defnsive in its stats. Other than that, we don’t know where to start, but we’d love to know what your initial thoughts are!

In short: we are completely overjoyed about these games. Region and Pokémon aside, the game’s graphics look stunning and immersive. 2019 has really only just begun, but we can’t wait for “Late 2019” to experience these games firsthand.

Are you excited for the eighth generation of Pokémon to commence? Comment below and tweet us @Fuzzable with all of your love and opinions!

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